"Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson can't quite pinpoint the cost of ""First Flight,"" the eight-minute animation that screened Saturday as part of the ""Oh, Canada"" program.

The co-directors spent three years making the film. Their composer went to Prague to record the score with the Czech Philharmonic. Some 85 people at DreamWorks worked on it.

But, after starting the project in their shared apartment, they spent another year-and-a-half completing ""First Flight"" while working on other DreamWorks projects as studio animators.

They said they worked on ""First Flight"" during their ""down time"" at DreamWorks.

And that could create a whole new working model for big studio animation films.

Charley Walters, a DreamWorks marketing executive, said at a master class on ""Animating the DreamWorks Way"" Monday at the Palm Springs Library, his studio is committed to continuing to release two animated features a year.

But Christian Roedel, an independent animated filmmaker who recently became a DreamWorks assistant, said the way Hood and Jefferson made their short inspired him to ""think differently, more innovative.""

/www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060829/EVENTS16/608290307"">Read the full article here.

Source:The Desert Sun"